Voucher › Voucher approval and filing

Approving and filing payment vouchers

A voucher protects the person who pays as much as the business. With a few simple habits, every payment can be traced in a minute, even years later.

Who should sign

1. Prepared by: the person who writes the voucher and hands over the money, usually the accountant or cashier.
2. Approved by: the owner, a partner or a manager who agrees that the payment is genuine and the amount is right. It should be someone other than the person who prepared it.
3. Receiver: the person who takes the money. Their signature shows that the money actually reached them.

In a one-person shop you will sign as both preparer and approver. Then the receiver's signature and the attached bill become even more important.

Set approval limits

Write down a simple rule and stick to it. For example:

The figures are only an example; choose what suits your business.

Before you approve, check

• The bill or slip is attached and its number is in the narration.
• The amount on the bill and on the voucher are the same.
• The account head is right. Repairs to a machine are Repairs and maintenance; a new machine is not an expense at all but an asset.
• The same bill was not paid before. Search the saved vouchers for the payee's name.
• An advance to staff is written as "Advance to staff", not as an expense, so it can be recovered from salary.

Filing

• One file per month, vouchers in number order. Staple the bill behind each voucher.
• Cancelled vouchers stay in the file, crossed and marked "Cancelled", so the numbers have no gaps.
• Write the voucher number on the bill too, so a loose bill can be put back.
• Keep bank vouchers and cash vouchers in the same series. The mode on each voucher tells them apart.
• At month end, add up the vouchers by account head and hand the file to your accountant with the bank statement.

How long to keep them

Keep vouchers and bills for at least eight years. Company law asks companies to keep books and their papers for eight years, and GST law asks for records to be kept for 72 months from the due date of the year's annual return, which works out to a little over seven years. Income tax cases can reach back several years too. Keep them longer if a tax case, audit or dispute is still open; your accountant can tell you the exact period for your business.

A digital copy as well

Every voucher you save here stays in this browser and can be opened, copied or printed again from Saved payment vouchers. Open My data and press Save a backup file every month after you close the file; keep that file on a pen drive or in your email. If you also scan the signed paper vouchers, name the scan with the voucher number, for example PV-26-27-045.pdf, so the paper and the scan match.